Facilitating access to content from group interactions

ABSTRACT

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that facilitates access to content. During operation, the system detects uploading of the content within a group interaction among a set of users. Next, the system aggregates the content into a centralized location. Finally, the system enables access to the content at the centralized location by one or more of the users.

BACKGROUND Field

The disclosed embodiments relate to techniques for managing access tocontent. More specifically, the disclosed embodiments relate totechniques for facilitating access to content from group interactions.

Related Art

Content, such as images, audio, video, and/or documents, is frequentlyshared within group interactions such as chat sessions, video chatsessions, and/or message threads. For example, a set of users may use agroup chat to share pictures from a trip or event with one another.However, accessing and/or storing the content outside of the groupinteraction may be difficult and/or tedious. For example, a user may notbe able to access images posted to a web-based message thread fromoutside the message thread unless the user manually saves each imagefrom the message thread to a local disk.

Consequently, user experiences with group interactions may be improvedby facilitating access to content from the group interactions by usersassociated with the group interactions.

SUMMARY

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that facilitates access tocontent. During operation, the system detects uploading of the contentwithin a group interaction among a set of users. Next, the systemaggregates the content into a centralized location. Finally, the systemenables access to the content at the centralized location by one or moreof the users.

In some embodiments, the system also shares the content at thecentralized location with other users associated with the one or more ofthe users.

In some embodiments, access to the content at the centralized locationby the one or more of the users and the other users is based on at leastone of:

-   -   (i) a relationship of the other users with the one or more of        the users;    -   (ii) a set of permissions associated with the set of users and        the other users; or    -   (iii) a set of preferences associated with the set of users and        the other users.

In some embodiments, aggregating the content into the centralizedlocation involves at least one of placing the content in the centralizedlocation after the content is uploaded, and aggregating the content intothe centralized location after the group interaction has completed.

In some embodiments, enabling access to the content at the centralizedlocation by the one or more of the users involves at least one ofproviding a link to the centralized location to the one or more of theusers, and synchronizing the content between the centralized locationand one or more electronic devices of the one or more of the users.

In some embodiments, the centralized location is at least one of a localdirectory, a remote directory, a shared directory, or an online contentmanagement system.

In some embodiments, the group interaction is associated with at leastone of a chat session, a message thread, a video chat session, a tag, ora category.

In some embodiments, the content includes at least one of an image, adocument, audio, video, or a file.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 shows a schematic of a system in accordance with the disclosedembodiments.

FIG. 2 shows a system for facilitating access to content in accordancewith the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart illustrating the process of facilitating accessto content in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 4 shows a computer system in accordance with the disclosedembodiments.

In the figures, like reference numerals refer to the same figureelements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description is presented to enable any person skilled inthe art to make and use the embodiments, and is provided in the contextof a particular application and its requirements. Various modificationsto the disclosed embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilledin the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied toother embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit andscope of the present disclosure. Thus, the present invention is notlimited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scopeconsistent with the principles and features disclosed herein.

The data structures and code described in this detailed description aretypically stored on a computer-readable storage medium, which may be anydevice or medium that can store code and/or data for use by a computersystem. The computer-readable storage medium includes, but is notlimited to, volatile memory, non-volatile memory, magnetic and opticalstorage devices such as disk drives, magnetic tape, CDs (compact discs),DVDs (digital versatile discs or digital video discs), or other mediacapable of storing code and/or data now known or later developed.

The methods and processes described in the detailed description sectioncan be embodied as code and/or data, which can be stored in acomputer-readable storage medium as described above. When a computersystem reads and executes the code and/or data stored on thecomputer-readable storage medium, the computer system performs themethods and processes embodied as data structures and code and storedwithin the computer-readable storage medium.

Furthermore, methods and processes described herein can be included inhardware modules or apparatus. These modules or apparatus may include,but are not limited to, an application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC) chip, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a dedicated orshared processor that executes a particular software module or a pieceof code at a particular time, and/or other programmable-logic devicesnow known or later developed. When the hardware modules or apparatus areactivated, they perform the methods and processes included within them.

The disclosed embodiments provide a method and system for facilitatingaccess to content from group interactions. As shown in FIG. 1, a groupinteraction 112 may be performed using a set of electronic devices104-110 such as personal computers, laptop computers, tablet computers,mobile phones, personal digital assistants, portable media players,digital media receivers, and/or other network-enabled electronicdevices. In addition, group interaction 112 and/or other communicationamong electronic devices 104-110 may be enabled by one or more networks,such as a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), personalarea network (PAN), virtual private network, intranet, cellular network,WiFi network, Bluetooth (Bluetooth™ is a registered trademark ofBluetooth SIG, Inc.) network, universal serial bus (USB) network, and/orEthernet network.

During group interaction 112, users of electronic devices 104-110 maytransmit communications that are shared among electronic devices104-110. For example, group interaction 112 may correspond to a chatsession, video chat session, message (e.g., text message, microblog,forum post, etc.) thread, content-sharing service, social networkingservice, and/or other network-based communication mechanism used byelectronic devices 104-110. In addition, the users may use groupinteraction 112 to share content (e.g., content 1 114, content x 116)with one another. For example, one or more users may upload images,audio, video, documents, files, and/or other content to groupinteraction 112 to share the content with other users participating ingroup interaction 112.

However, the episodic and/or self-contained nature of group interaction112 may cause difficulty for the users in accessing and/or managing thecontent outside of group interaction 112 and/or after group interaction112 has ended. For example, pictures uploaded to a chat session may beviewed within a website and/or application associated with the chatsession. If a user wishes to access the pictures outside the websiteand/or application, the user may be required to manually select eachpicture within the website and/or application and save the picture to alocal disk on an electronic device (e.g., electronic devices 104-110)used to access the website and/or application. Moreover, the user mayhave difficulty locating chats and/or pictures transmitted during thechat session within the website and/or application after the chatsession has ended.

In one or more embodiments, access to content associated with groupinteraction 112 is facilitated by an online content management system102. Online content management system 102 may be used by one or moreusers of electronic devices 104-110 to perform tasks related to storage,backup, retrieval, sharing, and/or synchronization of data. For example,each user may use an electronic device (e.g., electronic devices104-110) to store images, audio, video, documents, executables, and/orother files with a user account of the user on online content managementsystem 102.

To enable such storage, backup, sharing, synchronization, and/or accessto data on online content management system 102, online contentmanagement system 102 may store the data using one or more storagemechanisms. For example, online content management system 102 may useone or more servers, cloud storage, network-attached storage (NAS), astorage area network (SAN), a redundant array of inexpensive disks(RAID) system, and/or other network-accessible storage to store thedata. Online content management system 102 may additionally store thedata using a variety of filesystem architectures and/or hierarchies andobscure the locations and/or mechanisms involved in storing the datafrom electronic devices 104-110.

In one or more embodiments, online content management system 102 isassociated with a client application that supports automatic datasynchronization between electronic devices 104-110 and online contentmanagement system 102. For example, the client application may beinstalled on each electronic device and automatically synchronizechanges associated with a designated directory (e.g., new, deleted,modified, copied, and/or moved files and/or subdirectories within thedirectory) between the electronic device and online content managementsystem 102. To perform such synchronization, the client application maymonitor a local directory corresponding to the designated directory onthe electronic device and synchronize changes to the local directorywith a remote directory corresponding to the designated directory ononline content management system 102. Conversely, the client applicationmay identify changes to the remote directory and propagate the changesto the local directory. Because the client application is used directlyby a user of the electronic device, the client application may hideand/or omit details of the synchronization from the user.

As discussed in further detail below with respect to FIG. 2, onlinecontent management system 102 may aggregate the content from groupinteraction 112 into a centralized location and manage access to thecontent at the centralized location by users involved in groupinteraction 112 and/or other users related to the users. For example,online content management system 102 may copy the content to a shared orremote directory that is accessible from electronic devices 104-110through a link to the shared or remote directory and/or synchronizationof the shared or remote directory with local directories on electronicdevices 104-110. As a result, online content management system 102 maysimplify and/or streamline access to and/or use of content from groupinteraction 112 outside of group interaction 112 and/or after groupinteraction 112 has ended.

FIG. 2 shows a system for facilitating access to content in accordancewith the disclosed embodiments. More specifically, FIG. 2 shows a systemfor facilitating access to content (e.g., content 1 114, content x 116)from group interaction 112 among a set of users. The content may beincluded in text messages, emails, status updates, posts, microblogs,instant messages, video chats, and/or other communications from theusers within group interaction 102. The content and/or group interaction112 may additionally be associated with a particular subject matter. Forexample, content and/or communications associated with group interaction112 may fall under and/or refer to one or more threads, categories,questions, users, and/or tags (e.g., hashtags, metadata tags, etc.).

As shown in FIG. 2, the system may include an aggregation apparatus 202that detects uploading of the content within group interaction 112 andaggregates the content (e.g., content 1 214, content x 216) into acentralized location 206. For example, aggregation apparatus 202 mayinclude a listener that detects uploads of images, audio, video,documents, files, and/or other content by the users to group interaction112. Aggregation apparatus 202 may then scrape the content from groupinteraction 112 and place the content into centralized location 206after the content is uploaded and/or after group interaction 112 hascompleted. Alternatively, aggregation apparatus 202 may be integratedinto the service and/or application that enables group interaction 112among the users. In turn, aggregation apparatus 202 may automaticallytransfer uploaded content within group interaction 112 to centralizedlocation 206 after each piece of content is uploaded and/or in one ormore batches.

In addition, centralized location 206 may be associated with a localdirectory, a remote directory, a shared directory, and/or an onlinecontent management system, such as online content management system 102of FIG. 1. For example, aggregation apparatus 202 may reside on anelectronic device of a user participating in group interaction 112 andtransfer content from group interaction 112 to a directory on a localdisk of the electronic device. On the other hand, aggregation apparatus202 may be provided by the online content management system and transferthe content to a remote or shared directory within the online contentmanagement system.

Aggregation apparatus 202 may use a number of techniques to identifyand/or create centralized location 206. For example, aggregationapparatus 202 may create centralized location 206 as a directory withina directory or organizational hierarchy of content uploaded during groupinteractions associated with one or more users. Aggregation apparatus202 may also set the name of the directory and/or the position of thedirectory within the directory or organizational hierarchy based on oneor more timestamps associated with group interaction 112; the type ofcontent uploaded within group interaction 112; and/or a title, groupname, category, and/or tag associated with group interaction 112.

The system of FIG. 2 may also include a management apparatus 204 thatenables access to the content at centralized location 206 by one or moreof the users involved in group interaction 112, as well as sharing ofthe content with other users associated with the user(s). For example,management apparatus 204 may enable access to the content at centralizedlocation 206 by authorized users by providing a link to centralizedlocation 206 to the users and/or synchronizing the content atcentralized location 206 with one or more electronic devices, remotedirectories, and/or shared directories of the users.

Moreover, management apparatus 204 may manage access to content atcentralized location 206 based on relationships 208 among the user(s)and/or the other users, a set of permissions 210 associated with the setof users and the other users, and/or a set of preferences 212 associatedwith the set of users and the other users. For example, managementapparatus 204 may include default and/or user-specified settings toautomatically allow access to centralized location 206 by one or moreparticipants of group interaction 112. Management apparatus 204 may alsoallow access to centralized location 206 by one or more types ofcontacts (e.g., friends, acquaintances, family members, professionalcontacts, followers, etc.) and/or individual contacts specified by theparticipant(s). Alternatively, the participant(s) may enable sharing ofcontent in centralized location 206 with other groups and/or on a publicbasis. Finally, management apparatus 204 may provide and/or filter thecontent to each authorized user based on the user's preferences 212associated with aggregation of the content (e.g., as the content isuploaded, after group interaction 112 has finished, etc.), the source ofthe content (e.g., specific users, types of contacts, etc.), the type ofcontent (e.g., image, audio, video, document, file extension, etc.),and/or tags and/or categories associated with the content.

By enabling access to content from group interaction 112 throughcentralized location 206, aggregation apparatus 202 and managementapparatus 204 may facilitate management and/or use of the content byusers related to group interaction 112 outside of group interaction 112and/or after group interaction 112 has ended. In addition, themanagement of access to centralized location 206 by management apparatus204 based on relationships 208, permissions 210, and/or preferences 212may enable fine-grained control over sharing and/or filtering of thecontent by the users.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the system of FIG. 2 maybe implemented in a variety of ways. As mentioned above, the system ofFIG. 2 may be provided by an online content management system thatstores content from group interaction 112 in one or more remote and/orshared directories. Conversely, one or more components of the system mayreside on electronic devices, computer systems, and/or servers used toperform and/or enable group interaction 112.

Along the same lines, aggregation apparatus 202 and management apparatus204 may be provided by the same software and/or hardware component, oraggregation apparatus 202 and management apparatus 204 may executeindependently from one another. For example, aggregation apparatus 202and/or management apparatus 204 may be implemented by a single physicalmachine, one or more computer systems and/or electronic devices, aserver, a grid, one or more applications, one or more processes, and/ora cloud computing system.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart illustrating the process of facilitating accessto content in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. In one or moreembodiments, one or more of the steps may be omitted, repeated, and/orperformed in a different order. Accordingly, the specific arrangement ofsteps shown in FIG. 3 should not be construed as limiting the scope ofthe technique.

Initially, uploading of the content within a group interaction among aset of users is detected (operation 302). The group interaction may beassociated with a chat session, a message thread, a video chat session,a tag, and/or a category. The uploaded content may be detected by alistener and/or a component that is integrated within an applicationand/or service providing the group interaction. Next, the content isaggregated into a centralized location (operation 304) such as a localdirectory, a remote directory, a shared directory, and/or an onlinecontent management system. The content may be placed into thecentralized location after the content is uploaded and/or after thegroup interaction has completed.

Access to the content at the centralized location by one or more of theusers is also enabled (operation 306). For example, access to thecontent at the centralized location may be enabled by providing a linkto the centralized location to the user(s) and/or synchronizing thecontent at the centralized location with one or more electronic devicesof the user(s).

Moreover, the content at the centralized location may optionally beshared with other users associated with the user(s) (operation 308). Forexample, the content at the centralized location may be accessible tothe participants of the group interaction by default. In addition, eachparticipant may enable sharing of the content at the centralizedlocation with one or more other users based on the relationship of theother user(s) to the participant. Finally, each user with access to thecentralized location may filter and/or sort the content at thecentralized location based on one or more preferences of the user withrespect to the source of the content, the type of the content, and/orthe group interaction. In other words, the users may elect to receivethe content from the centralized location through various mechanisms(e.g., through a link and/or local directory) and at different times(e.g., after the content is uploaded, after the group interaction hasended). Each user may also specify a subset of the content to bereceived (e.g., based on type of content, category, tag, source, group,etc.) and/or opt out of receiving the content at a centralized location.

FIG. 4 shows a computer system 400 in accordance with the disclosedembodiments. Computer system 400 includes a processor 402, memory 404,storage 406, and/or other components found in electronic computingdevices. Processor 402 may support parallel processing and/ormulti-threaded operation with other processors in computer system 400.Computer system 400 may also include input/output (I/O) devices such asa keyboard 408, a mouse 410, and a display 412.

Computer system 400 may include functionality to execute variouscomponents of the present embodiments. In particular, computer system400 may include an operating system (not shown) that coordinates the useof hardware and software resources on computer system 400, as well asone or more applications that perform specialized tasks for the user. Toperform tasks for the user, applications may obtain the use of hardwareresources on computer system 400 from the operating system, as well asinteract with the user through a hardware and/or software frameworkprovided by the operating system.

In one or more embodiments, computer system 400 provides a system forfacilitating access to content. The system may include an aggregationapparatus that detects uploading of the content within a groupinteraction among a set of users and aggregates the content into acentralized location. The system may also include a management apparatusthat enables access to the content at the centralized location by one ormore of the users and/or shares the content at the centralized locationwith other users associated with the one or more of the users.

In addition, one or more components of computer system 400 may beremotely located and connected to the other components over a network.Portions of the present embodiments (e.g., aggregation apparatus,management apparatus, etc.) may also be located on different nodes of adistributed system that implements the embodiments. For example, thepresent embodiments may be implemented using a cloud computing systemthat aggregates content from group interactions among a set of remoteelectronic devices and enables access to the content at one or morecentralized locations by users of the electronic devices.

The foregoing descriptions of various embodiments have been presentedonly for purposes of illustration and description. They are not intendedto be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the formsdisclosed. Accordingly, many modifications and variations will beapparent to practitioners skilled in the art. Additionally, the abovedisclosure is not intended to limit the present invention.

1-20. (canceled)
 21. A method comprising: detecting uploading of the content during a group interaction among a set of users; in response to detecting the group interaction, automatically determining a first group of users based on the group interaction; in response to determining the first group of users, automatically transferring, aggregating and storing the content of the group interaction within the first group into a centralized location; enabling access to the content at the centralized location by one or more of the users in the first group of users; and sharing the content at the centralized location with other users associated with the one or more of the users based on one or more criteria.
 22. The method of claim 21, wherein the one or more criteria including one or more preferences associated with the set of users and the other users.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a source of the content.
 24. The method of claim 22, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a type of the content.
 25. The method of claim 22, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a group interaction.
 26. The method of claim 21, wherein the one or more criteria including a relationship of the other users with the one or more of the users.
 27. The method of claim 21, wherein the one or more criteria including a set of permissions associated with the set of users and the other users.
 28. A system comprising: one or more processors; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium including one or more sequences of instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, causes: detecting uploading of the content during a group interaction among a set of users; in response to detecting the group interaction, automatically determining a first group of users based on the group interaction; in response to determining the first group of users, automatically transferring, aggregating and storing the content of the group interaction within the first group into a centralized location; enabling access to the content at the centralized location by one or more of the users in the first group of users; and sharing the content at the centralized location with other users associated with the one or more of the users based on one or more criteria.
 29. The system of claim 28, wherein the one or more criteria including one or more preferences associated with the set of users and the other users.
 30. The system of claim 29, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a source of the content.
 31. The system of claim 29, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a type of the content.
 32. The system of claim 29, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a group interaction.
 33. The system of claim 28, wherein the one or more criteria including a relationship of the other users with the one or more of the users.
 34. The system of claim 28, wherein the one or more criteria including a set of permissions associated with the set of users and the other users.
 35. A non-transitory computer-readable medium including one or more sequences of instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, causes: detecting uploading of the content during a group interaction among a set of users; in response to detecting the group interaction, automatically determining a first group of users based on the group interaction; in response to determining the first group of users, automatically transferring, aggregating and storing the content of the group interaction within the first group into a centralized location; enabling access to the content at the centralized location by one or more of the users in the first group of users; and sharing the content at the centralized location with other users associated with the one or more of the users based on one or more criteria.
 36. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the one or more criteria including one or more preferences associated with the set of users and the other users.
 37. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 36, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a source of the content.
 38. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 36, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a type of the content.
 39. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 36, wherein the one or more criteria including filtering the content based on the one or more preferences with respect to a group interaction.
 40. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the one or more criteria including a relationship of the other users with the one or more of the users.
 41. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the one or more criteria including a set of permissions associated with the set of users and the other users. 